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June 24, 2013

Head of SEC’s Municipal Securities, Public Pensions Unit Resigns

Greenberg, also director of the Philadelphia regional office, is leaving for the private sector

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday that Elaine Greenberg, chief of the Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit and associate director of the Philadelphia Regional Office, is leaving the SEC after 25 years to join the private sector.

Greenberg, who will step down at the end of July, has served in dual roles at the SEC for the past three and a half years, leading the Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit since its creation in January 2010 and heading the Philadelphia Regional Office’s enforcement program since December 2006.

The Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit, consisting of staff in ten SEC offices, oversees enforcement in the $4 trillion municipal securities market and the $3 trillion public pension market.

SEC Commissioner Elisse Walter, who led the commission’s recent review of the municipal securities market, said in a statement that “Elaine’s leadership of the unit and her efforts on behalf of investors have been groundbreaking and have had a tremendous impact on the behavior of participants in the municipal securities and public pensions markets.”

Andrew Ceresney, co-director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, added in the same statement that “Elaine has had a distinguished career at the SEC and the depth and breadth of her knowledge and experience is impressive. Through her expert lawyering, creativity and tenacity, she has made major contributions to the agency by bringing numerous significant enforcement actions.”

As the unit’s inaugural chief, the SEC says Greenberg determined its objectives, recruited, selected, and trained staff members, set priorities and established five areas of focus—offering and disclosure fraud, tax and arbitrage-driven fraud, pay-to-play and public corruption violations, public pension accounting and disclosure violations, and valuation and pricing fraud.

Under Greenberg’s leadership, the agency brought unprecedented actions against states and municipalities—namely the states of New Jersey and Illinois as well as the city of Harrisburg. New Jersey and Illinois, the first and second SEC enforcement actions against states, were charged with misleading bond investors about the funding of the states’ pension systems. Harrisburg was charged with fraud for misleading statements made outside of its securities disclosure documents.

Greenberg, a Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude graduate who received her B.A. and J.D. degrees from Temple University, joined the SEC’s Philadelphia office in 1987 as a staff attorney and later was promoted to be a branch chief and then assistant director.